Education Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The answer is Only ii and iii.

Post-structuralists reject the structuralist picture of individuals as mere puppets of a system or as bearers of given roles. As Cohen, Manion and Morrison summarise it, they argue that individual agency is prominent (ii), and that people are diverse and different, and may carry contradictions and tensions within themselves (iii).

Statements i and iv describe the structuralist view that post-structuralism reacts against, so every option including them is wrong.

Answer: B

The key gives i-a, ii-b, iii-c, iv-d.

• Metaphysics deals with the general problems of reality, human nature and God (a).
• Epistemology is the theory of knowledge (b).
• Logic discusses the laws of valid reasoning (c).
• Ethics investigates the problem of morality (d).

Item c's mention of 'other problems of morality' is the paper's own wording, but the laws of valid reasoning identify it as logic. Every other code sends epistemology or ethics to the wrong item.

Answer: A

According to Plato, social education is a means to social justice.

In the Republic, justice in the state means each class doing the work for which it is fitted, and a state-controlled system of education is the means of training each person for that role. Education is therefore the chief instrument of creating a just society, and it shapes character above all.

The other statements contradict Plato: he held that education builds character, treated it as a function of the state rather than private enterprise, and saw its aim as virtue and justice, not mere social success.

Answer: B

The answer is Only iii and iv.

Socrates was concerned that people lacked moral education and understanding (iii), and he constantly urged the young to examine their lives and beliefs, holding that the unexamined life is not worth living (iv).

Statements i and ii are wrong. Against the Sophists' relativism, Socrates believed in absolute and unchanging standards of virtue and goodness that could be reached through questioning, so he did not hold values to be relative.

Answer: C

The answer is Only i, iii and iv.

Buddhist philosophy teaches dependent origination (pratityasamutpada): everything, material and mental, arises because of some other condition (i). It teaches impermanence: all things are subject to change (iii). And in the chain of causation, suffering, old age and death depend on birth (iv).

Statement ii contradicts dependent origination, since nothing is unconditioned or self-existent, so every option including ii is wrong.

Answer: A

The Panchakosha doctrine is in the Taittiriya Upanishad.

The Brahmananda Valli of the Taittiriya Upanishad describes the self as covered by five sheaths (koshas): the food sheath (annamaya), the vital (pranamaya), the mental (manomaya), the intellectual (vijnanamaya) and the bliss sheath (anandamaya).

The Mandukya Upanishad deals with the four states of consciousness and Om, while the Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka are known for other teachings.

Answer: A

The key gives both statements are correct.

Statement I follows the common gloss of the word. Philosophy comes from the Greek philosophia, literally love of wisdom; many textbooks, including the Hindi rendering printed in this paper, put it loosely as love of knowledge. Statement II says philosophy tries to know things that concern human beings both near and far, that is, it covers matters that bear on human life directly and remotely. Read that way it is a broad but acceptable description of the subject.

Strictly, wisdom is a stronger word than knowledge and Statement II is awkwardly worded, and I could not find the textbook sentence either comes from. So this explanation follows the key and the paper's own wording, and the options that call either statement wrong are rejected on that reading.

Answer: D

The answer is Only i, ii and iii.

Richard Pring characterises post-modernism by a revolt against thought control and cultural control (i), an assertion of multiple forms of cultural expression (ii), and an abandonment of certainty (iii).

Statement iv is wrong: post-modernism's rejection of a single objective truth fits with the interpretive paradigm rather than opposing it, so options including iv fail.

Answer: A

The answer is Only i and iii.

Aristotle defended private property as natural and useful (i), criticising Plato's communism, and he justified slavery, arguing that some people are slaves by nature (iii).

Statement ii is wrong, since he defended the family against Plato's proposal to abolish it, and statement iv is wrong, since he favoured stability and the existing order, warning against revolution. Options including ii or iv fail.

Answer: B

Madhyama Pratipada is a cardinal principle of Buddhism.

Madhyama pratipada, the Middle Path, was taught by the Buddha in his first sermon at Sarnath: avoid both the extreme of sensual indulgence and the extreme of severe self-mortification. The Noble Eightfold Path is that middle way.

Jainism is known for its rigorous asceticism and anekantavada, Vedanta for its doctrine of Brahman, and Sankhya for the dualism of purusha and prakriti.